His Mother's Son
by EnglandBabe1997
Summary: He has a mother. His mother is the Mage. His mother is Nerissa. Is there really any difference?
1. Caleb

**This is for Guest: Emily, who reviewed ages ago on my fic W is for WITCH, but I've only just gotten round to writing it x I really enjoyed writing this and wished I could make it longer, but sadly the scene doesn't give me all that much to work with x**

It was quite nice down here, at the bottom of Mackenzie Falls. Peaceful, tranquil almost.

The waters are mostly calm, the ripples from his and his father's recent swim already stilling on the surface, clear and close enough for him to see his reflection. It is almost silent, if not for the waterfall and the chirping of the birds, like they have nothing better in the day to do.

Not at all fitting for the life changing information he's just been given. Right now he doesn't feel at all tranquil, only confused and enraged.

Nerissa is his mother. His mother is the Mage.

He has a mother.

There are too many thoughts pounding through his head, like the pounding of the waterfalls only metres away and the blood rushing through him. He has a mother - and he hasn't had one of those all his life. But he'd like to think that he'd grown up well enough without one, just him and his father. Better even, than some of those that grew up mothered. They have gotten used to being look after, babied at some point in their lives.

Caleb has never had any kind of maternal focus and has been a better rebel leader because of it, even if it means he flounders when coming to his girlfriend.

He wonders briefly why she left them, no matter who she is, but squashes the though quickly. No magic can change the past, not even Nerissa's, and he wouldn't want her to. These thoughts remind him that he is only barely an adult, still half a child; because he wants his mother at home with his father, not planning world domination.

Secondly, Nerissa is the Mage. The Mage who had helped them defeat Phobos, who had been on their side and defended them, protected them. That Mage had been killed eighteen years ago and replaced by a copy designed to act the same, and that copy had started a relationship with his father.

Nerissa was the Mage. The Mage was his mother. Nerissa was his mother. Was there any difference between the two?

Did Nerissa have the almost soft and caring side to her or was that all just as much of an illusion as her appearance?

He already knows the answer to that question, had known it for a while. He just didn't want to admit it.

He looks at the water and then at his father, trying to notice the resemblances. What parts of her are a part of him? He wants nothing to do with her.

Nerissa is his mother. She is insane and power hungry and wants to take over the world. She probably won't stop for anyone - not even her son.

Especially not her son.

But he has to try.


	2. Nerissa

**I decided to add this second bit in Nerissa's POV, because I wanted to show she's not all evil, just mostly unhinged (and a little bit evil) x Please read and review :)**

She was surprised that she was taken in by Caleb's act, but she supposes she really shouldn't be. He is her flesh and blood after all and what is she, if not the consummate actor?

It is how she'd lived her life for so long now that until recently she'd forgotten who she really was, instead being the Mage or one of her many other guises. Those guises had become more of her than Nerissa had even anticipated.

Nerissa had watched her son grow up from the shadows, just out of view, making sure that Julian was raising him right.

He was doing a good job - Caleb was strong-willed, dedicated, hard-working and loyal. All traits she admired, even if it would be difficult to get him to side with her. But once he was...

It would be difficult for anyone to take him away again, even if that had been her own fault for walking away.

She hated that she'd had to leave him, but she couldn't exactly stay with them as Nerissa, as a wanted and hunted criminal. So she'd left, to continue her disguise as the Mage and watch from afar. She had always watched over him, even before he'd even been old enough to meet the Mage.

But Caleb also rushed into things, acting before he thought, a trait that he'd gotten from both his parents and she wished he'd gotten from neither.

But he had. And he'd charged in here, to the cave that had once been her prison, without any sort of plan in place, getting himself caught by his own mother with complete ease.

His relationship with the vain Earth Guardian was troubling, but now that he was here she could have set that to rights.

Only the Guardians had come to rescue him.

A sharp pang had shot through her, as she remembered her own time as a Guardian and Cassidy who had long since been lost. These girls didn't deserve the honour of being Guardians, young, foolish girls who had only defeated Phobos through her assistance and the help of a powerful and untrained Queen.

The red-head, the fiery one, had her heart. Her heart was in someone else's hands, dangling just out of reach.

But, with Caleb's help, she'd had it in reach at last. They would hardly fight against Caleb, not properly, especially not the blonde Earth Guardian.

But Caleb had chosen to betray get, to side with the Guardians and attempt to take her new heart by force.

He was acting before thinking again.

Like mother, like son.


End file.
